Spiritual Life and the Word of God by Emanuel Swedenborg
page 66 of 136 (48%)
page 66 of 136 (48%)
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adulteries man becomes a form of hell, and from the love of adulteries
he becomes an image of the devil. That from the marriages in which there is true marriage love all delights and felicities increase even till they become the delights and felicities of the inmost heaven, and that all that is undelightful and unhappy in the marriages in which love of adultery reigns increases in direfulness even to the lowest hell, can be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell (n. 386). (A.E., n. 993.) True marriage love is from the Lord alone. It is from the Lord alone because it descends from the Lord's love for heaven and the church, and thus from the love of good and truth; for good is from the Lord, and truth is in heaven and the church; and from this it follows that true marriage love in its first essence is love to the Lord. And from this it is that no one can be in true marriage love and in its pleasantnesses, delights, blessings, and joys, unless he acknowledges the Lord alone, that is, that the trinity is in Him. One who approaches the Father as a person by Himself, or the Holy Spirit as a person by Himself, and not these as in the Lord, can have no marriage love. The genuine conjugal principle is given especially in the third heaven, because the angels there are in love to the Lord and acknowledge Him alone as God, and do His commandments. To them doing the commandments is loving the Lord. To them the Lord's commandments are the truths in which they receive Him. There is conjunction of the Lord with them, and of them with the Lord; for they are in the Lord because they are in good, and the Lord is in them because they are in truths. This is the heavenly marriage, from which true marriage love descends. (A.E., n. 995.) As true marriage love in its first essence is love to the Lord from the |
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